{"id":878889,"date":"2026-09-01T01:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T01:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/878889\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T01:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T01:46:09","slug":"undefeated-ko-artist-moves-closer-to-canelo-fight-after-latest-stoppage-its-going-to-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/878889\/","title":{"rendered":"Undefeated KO artist moves closer to Canelo fight after latest stoppage: “It’s going to happen”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canelo Alvarez could be ordered to enter an immediate title defence if he emerges victorious against Christian Mbilli on October 31.<\/p>\n

The Mexican has not fought since September 2025, when he was relieved of his undisputed super-middleweight crown after losing a unanimous decision to Terence Crawford.<\/p>\n

On that same card, Mbilli retained his WBC \u2018interim\u2019 strap following a 10-round draw against Lester Martinez<\/a>, maintaining his position as one of the top contenders at 168lbs.<\/p>\n

The Frenchman was then upgraded to full world champion in December, with Crawford having relinquished his four major titles and announced his retirement as a three-division undisputed king.<\/p>\n

Canelo will therefore have the opportunity to reclaim one of his old belts in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with Mbilli making a first defence of his WBC title.<\/p>\n

The winner of their showdown may then be ordered to face Martinez, as the unbeaten mandatory challenger comes off two successful defences of his WBC \u2018interim\u2019 strap.<\/p>\n

Most recently, the 30-year-old scored a 10th-round stoppage of Luka Plantic<\/a> last weekend, which followed his unanimous decision victory over Immanuwel Aleem in March.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the post-fight presser following his win against Plantic, Martinez said through a translator that he expects to eventually face both Canelo and Mbilli.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, look, at the end of the day, I\u2019ve said it before: the second fight [with Mbilli] will happen, possibly next year or the year after. But either one of those fights makes sense for us.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know the eyes of the world are going to be on [Mbilli-Canelo], and because we\u2019re going to be there, we\u2019re going to take advantage of all of that. But both fights are going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having already created the \u201cblueprint\u201d to defeat Canelo, Crawford trainer Brian \u2018BoMac\u2019 McIntyre said afterwards<\/a> that he is supremely confident in guiding Martinez to victory against either Alvarez or Mbilli.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canelo Alvarez could be ordered to enter an immediate title defence if he emerges victorious against Christian Mbilli…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":878890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-878889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/878890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}